of course like most projects i help with this has morphed from a repair job to a complete rebuild. The jist of it is i want to use the kohana framework to make a simple membership database with some simple reporting features. The database design and how it should function are done just the php code that escapes me.

Just steal the Joomla backend, or use Joomla plus the community builder module, and you don't need to code anything. It is php and mysql by default. I know a guy who specializing in building these if you want help, but he does it for a living so that would likely incur an expense.